The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield eBook

Perhaps the reader may think that this chapter, like
several others, is (as the theatre-goer said of “Hamlet”)
too “deuced full of quotation.” Yet
what can give a better picture of old stage life than
these quaint and often eloquent records of the past?
Pray be lenient, therefore, thou kindly critic, if
the most faded books of the theatrical library are
taken down from the dusty shelf, and a few of the
neglected pages are printed once again. As these
very books seem all the better in their dingy bindings,
so do the old ideas, the odd conceits, the stories
that charmed dead generations, take on a keener zest
when clothed in the formal language of other days.

If we want to get that formal language in all its
glory, let us bring from the library a copy of some
early eighteenth-century tragedy. Shall we close
our eyes and choose one at random? Well, what
have we? The “Tamerlane” of our friend
Nicholas Rowe, in which is set forth the story of
the generous Emperor of Tartary, the “very glass
and fashion of all conquerors.” The play
is prefaced by a fulsome “Epistle Dedicatory,”
addressed to the sacred person of the “Right
Honourable William, Lord Marquis of Harrington,”
and showing, almost pathetically, how frequently the
literary workers of Queen Anne’s “golden
age” were wont to beg the influence of some powerful
patron. The dedication seems absolutely grovelling
when viewed from the present standards, but Mr. Rowe
and his friends saw therein nothing more remarkable
than respectful homage to one of the world’s
great men. The republic of letters was then an
empty name.[A]

[Footnote A: “Tamerlane” was brought
out in 1702, with Betterton in the title role.]

The author of “Tamerlane” fears that in
thus calling attention to the play he may appear guilty
of “impertinence and interruptions,” and,
he adds, “I am sure it is a reason why I ought
to beg your Lordship’s pardon, for troubling
you with this tragedy; not but that poetry has always
been, and will still be the entertainment of all wise
men, that have any delicacy in their knowledge.”
Then, after wasting a little necessary flattery on
the noble marquis, he starts off into an unblushing
eulogy of King William III., whose clemency was mirrored,
supposedly, by the hero of the tragedy. “Some
people [who do me a very great honour in it] have
fancy’d, that in the person of Tamerlane, I
have alluded to the greatest character of the present
age. I don’t know whether I ought not to
apprehend a great deal of danger from avowing a design
like that: It may be a task indeed worthy of the
greatest genius, which this or any other time has produc’d;
but therefore I ought not to stand the shock of a
parallel lest it should be seen, to my disadvantage,
how far the Hero has transcended the poet’s
thoughts”—­and so on, ad nauseam.

To turn the leaves of the play, after wading through
the slime of the “Epistle,” is to find
amusing proof of the high-flown and at times bombastic
expression which elicited such admiration from audiences
of the old regime. (Do not laugh at it, reader;
you tolerate an equal amount of absurdity in modern
melodrama). The very first lines are charmingly
suggestive of the starched and stately past. “Hail
to the sun!” says the Prince of Tanais: